It was about 10am on D-Day that Roy Emmington arrived off the Normandy Coast, aboard and American built frigate, HMS Tyler.
“We had gone down to Southend to pick up four troop carriers, which we were to escort across,” he said at his home in Magpie Hall Road, Chatham. We followed the minesweepers in.
“In the Channel there were lots of ships of all kinds. Also, these giant caissons being towed across to build the Mulberry Harbour.
“I watched the troops go ashore I think on Gold Beach. They transferred to landing craft to get onto the beach. We weren’t firing. Our guns were like peashooters compared with the big guns of the battleships.
“There were a lot of bodies in the water, about 50 or 60. They were Americans, drifted down from Omaha Beach. But they were black Americans. Their landing craft had dropped its ramp too soon, so they leaped out into deep water.
“I wondered if they had been the victims of a sadistic white captain, who didn’t like black people, or didn’t care about them. They weren’t fighting troops, they were pioneer corps men, pick and shovel guys sent over to dig latrines and so forth for the white troops.
“They had all their equipment with them when they went into the water, so they didn’t have a chance.
“I saw my old ship, the battleship HMS Warspite, when we got over there. I served on her in the Mediterranean and when she was then sent to Norway for the Second Battle of Narvik. We had a good day at the start of the battle and sunk nine destroyers.
“Then we got damaged and had to take her across to America for repairs. After that we brought the Resolution back to Devonport.
“I trained to become a torpedo man and joined HMS Anson. That was my third ship. Later I was sent to America to join HMS Tyler and to get ready for D-Day.
“After D-Day, we were running backwards and forwards to the Isle of Wight, escorting old railway ferries that had been converted for troop carriers. We didn’t see much action. Our job was to look for submarines, but we never found any, and I never fired any torpedoes.
“Although I was a torpedo man for much of the War, I never fired a single torpedo.”
Roy had been to sea for only about a week before the Second World War started, having joined up in 1938. He was sent to train at HMS Ganges at Shotley, Suffolk where he had to climb over the notorious148ft mast. “I hated that,” he said. “I always closed my eyes.”
